Harpy Eagle 1902

This study of a Harpy Eagle at the Rijksmuseum was made by Bernard Willem Wierink, and from the looks of it, with graphite and coloured chalks. You can see the artist building up the form with hatched marks, one on top of the other. The coloured chalks subtly add depth to the body of the bird. I can just imagine Wierink studying the Harpy Eagle, thinking about light, form, and tone and making all these decisions about how to capture its likeness. I find myself wondering if this study was used for something else, or if the act of drawing was enough in itself. It reminds me that artists are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting, drawing – these are all forms of embodied expression which embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.